Hero!

by Dave Duncan

  So some or all of the passengers would become settlers, buying entry rights with whatever scraps of unfamiliar technology they might have brought, and with their ship itself. The Patrol would refurbish it, rotate it to a new axis, and send it on again, outward to the frontier worlds. The new crew would be Ultian spacers, of course—keep it in the family. This steady Outward drift was what mankind had been doing since it fell out of a tree in some tropical corner of a minor world called Earth. It was the human way. Probably this one vessel had seemed no different from any of the others, except that it had come from Scyth.

  That was significant! The Patrol should have been more vigilant. What had gone wrong? Tham was not only the most likely boy to know the answer to that question, Tham vyas almost the only high-ranking officer in the Patrol who might be willing to share the information with Vaun. Even if Roker had specifically ordered him not to, Tham would probably confide in Vaun if Vaun asked him to. Normally Vaun would not have forced him. Now Tham had withdrawn. Vaun had been viewing Tham’s retreat and the Q ship as two unrelated problems. Perhaps the running was clearing his head, for suddenly he decided that that was altogether too much of a…

  A sim imaged in his path, a girl in a security uniform, with a gun on its hip. It glowed faintly, so that he would see it under the trees, and it held up a hand to stop him.

  “Sir…”

  Some trick of Maeve’s, trying to make him stay? Not likely.

  Without a word, he ran right through the illusion and kept on going. Mirages couldn’t hurt him. Mirage guns couldn’t hurt him. Pants and shirt stuck coldly to his skin now, and his heart was racing, but the ground had leveled off at last and he must be close to the parking lot.

  Then he heard a sudden rattle ahead of him, like dry sticks. With a stab of panic, he realized what the sim had been about to tell him.

  Idiot!

  Croaking aloud in his fear, Vaun sprawled to his knees on the path and ripped off his shirt.

  KRANTZ! WHAT AN idiot!

  Most of the crops and all of the vertebrates on Ult had been imported by mankind. The native life-forms were all primitive, and yet there was one species that came dangerously near to sentience. That rustling close ahead of Vaun was the sound of a pepod.

  If he had blundered into its privacy radius, then he was dead, and he would take a lot of other people with him. The rattle came again, sickeningly close. He curled over until his forehead was almost touching the ground, holding his forearms alongside his thighs to cover the cloth. The position was not dignified, and it made panting damnably hard, but it was the only way to face pepods. Either they regarded clothes as a threat, or else they enjoyed watching humans grovel.

  The chill on Vaun’s back was fear and cooling sweat mixed. Mostly fear. Sweat trickled down from his armpits. Idiot!

  Rattle…To the eye, a pepod was an armchair-sized bush of hard twigs, but those twigs were pseudolimbs and mandibles and poison spines and eyestalks—and also antennae, for pepods had a germanium-silicon metabolism, and communicated by high-frequency radio. How close? The size of the defended area depended on the size of the unit itself. When a pepod felt threatened, it assembled all the others within range into a group organism and they all went berserk together.

  Pebbles clinked, but Vaun was still alive.

  Gravel dug into his knees and he smelled the cold earth.

  Suddenly a voice whispered in his ear. Possibly a sim was bending over him—he did not look up. “The quasisentient commiserates on your elevated body temperature, sir.” Security was translating the radio jabber.

  Vaun was shivering, but the pepod would be viewing him in far-infrared. Pepods favored the southern hemisphere, which was colder, and they disliked Angel, the supermassive star that warmed northern winters. In a few thousand years it would have drifted away, and the pepods would again inherit the planet.

  “Inform the beastie that I also express my sympathies on the unpleasant weather.”

  “I have done so. It wishes you good grazing.”

  Vaun risked raising his head a little, to ease his neck. “Give it a suitable acknowledgment. Can I get up yet?”

  “In a moment, sir. I congratulated it on its melodious song. It is moving away from the path, sir.”

  As Vaun sat up and fumbled to find his sodden shirt, he felt fury replacing his fear. Pepods were an unpredictable hazard and also a real nuisance. Of necessity, the law everywhere protected them from molestation, but simple radio screamers would keep them away from human settlements. Why would Maeve tolerate a pepod on her grounds?

  The only reason he could think of, as he stalked angrily on up the track, was that there were always pepods around Valhal.

  VAUN’S FAVORITE TORCH was a standard Patrol K47—a seat on a star, as the old song said—but his had been considerably souped up before he had acquired it, and he had added a few improvements since. The bench, for example, would fold down into a couch just barely large enough for two. Even a regulation K47 would fly a ballistic trajectory at the limits of the atmosphere, and a surprising number of girls were interested in trying things weightless.

  He took off on manual, blasting straight up at max climb. The sonic boom would rattle Arkady a little. Admirals were expected to do things like that, and Maeve would learn that he had departed before Security told her so. She must already know of his encounter with the pepod, of course. Bitch! If she hadn’t made him so mad, he wouldn’t have been so cretinly stupid.

  He set course for Valhal, seeing the Commonwealth spread out below him, ghostly blue in the Angellight, under a spooky sky of slate-colored velvet. The lights of Hiport gleamed to the north. Usually when he came this way, he would stop in there; that was why he had not known of Arkady, and Maeve.

  Less than a dozen other stars were visible, the few that could compete with Angel. One day Angel would go supernova and take half the Bubble with it. Somewhere high off to the left was mythical Earth, three thousand elwies away. Sol was a nondescript star, visible at such a distance only through major telescopes. No one had heard from Earth in a long, long tune, or from any of the first worlds. Inside the Bubble was the Silence.

  Scyth had gone silent thirty-odd years ago. But it had sent out the Q ship afterward, and that was very unusual. Tham said…

  Krantz!

  Like an echo of thunder came memory of the insight that the pepod had interrupted. Why should Tham suddenly withdraw, just when he was most needed? Yes, the galaxy was full of coincidences…It was full of trickery, too.

  And anyway, what was Vaun doing, heading home to an empty bed when he hadn’t completed the task he’d set out on? What sort of famous hero ran from a few alarm signals? He reached for the controls again.

  The party beacons would all be turned off now. There would be no girl tonight he could dazzle with thoughts of hostessing the famous Valhal and comforting the famous hero. No naked little redhead in his arms tonight. Nights without sex brought bad dreams.

  He had more important things to do than sleep.

  He banked as tightly as the safeties would let him and laid in a return course for Forhil, Tham’s place.

  Famous hero…Vaun had killed Abbot and defeated the Brotherhood. This invading Q ship might be the Brotherhood’s revenge.

  Scyth had gone silent thirty years ago—which meant about forty if you allowed for the time lag—and Tham believed that the Brotherhood had been responsible. Vaun had heard him say so more than once. True, Prior had come from Avalon. Abbot and Unity had come from Avalon, but Avalon had not succumbed to the Brotherhood yet—probably. A couple of years ago, when the Avalonian Patrol had finally answered Ultian Command’s urgent queries, Tham had passed the news to Vaun. The war had been won, the message said, the brethren on Avalon defeated and wiped out—and Avalonian Command had congratulated its Ultian comrades on their own victory against the infestation.

  That message could have been a fake.

  Scyth was part of the Brotherhood problem, too. Scyth’s sudden silenc
e had come later, long after Unity had arrived at Ult, and this new, deadly Q ship had certainly originated from Scyth after that. So what was the Patrol up to? What was Roker up to? The high admiral was a prick of the first water, but he did not usually allow personalities to interfere with business. Why was Planetary Command not consulting its great hero, Admiral Vaun?

  He was the expert on the Brotherhood, wasn’t he?

  Despite Vaun’s brave lies to Maeve, he had no idea of the Patrol’s thinking on the threatening Q ship. He had tried to get through to Roker, but his calls had been refused.

  And was Tham’s withdrawal at this critical moment mere coincidence, or was it Roker’s handiwork…or even the Brotherhood’s? The brethren had subverted the Patrol once before. They might try again.

  Now the torch was so high that the sky had turned black. Angel was a blinding pinpoint that polarized a jagged purple blot in the canopy field, but now and again it flashed brilliantly off rambling watercourses on the dark world below.

  Down there was the Putra Delta.

  That was another reason Vaun never came this way.

  In all the years since he first left his birthplace, he had only gone back once. He had left in silence, an outcast. He had returned in triumph, a hero. He could still taste that sour memory…

  AS THE TORCH canopy dephases, the heat hits him like a fist. Hot air steams in his lungs, a white brilliance of sunlight stabs knives in his eyes. He smells mud. His hands tremble as he grasps the edge of the hull to dismount.

  He jumps down the last step, and grass squelches slimily below his boots. A tiny, sly voice in his right ear is prompting him, “Head higher. Look left…now right. Smile. Take a deep breath. You’re happy, dammit! That’s better. Now start to walk…”

  The hero returns. Smiling. Dazzled. Walking—a little faster, now—walking over to where the welcoming committee huddles in terror and bewilderment. The hidden cameras watch, so the world can watch.

  Admiral’s epaulets weigh heavy on his shoulders. Already his chest glitters with medals and jeweled stars, and there are dozens more scheduled to come yet as the governments and rulers of the planet outdo one another in honoring the hero.

  This is important for the Patrol, remember. Vaun’s a hero. Good old Vaun. He saved the world. Everyone wants to watch him coming home to tiny Puthain. Good for the Patrol.

  Taxes—a chance to raise taxes…

  “Looking happy,” the prompt says in his ear. “Looking happy. Hold out your arms now. Higher! Walking faster.’

  The grass is muddy, spurting under his shoes. The smell of the river…How could he have forgotten the ever-present stink on the river, the oozy, black mud of the delta? Or forgotten the unending drone of brownflies, the sigh of the empty wind in the long green pozee grass; not a tree or a hill in sight, nor any building fit for human habitation. The watchers burst into cheering, all together.

  Puthain? It’s been cleaned up specially for today’s show. Rustic simplicity is okay, but voters and taxpayers wouldn’t like squalor…Still only an ugly heap of driftwood, that’s all it is. They never called it Puthain when he was a child. Just the village. Probably the name has been invented to put it on the map: Puthain, birthplace of Admiral Vaun.

  The hero.

  But it’s only a litter of hovels half-drowned in the mud of the Putra Delta. He can smell eels under the mud smell. The scent makes his mouth water, although he has learned that eating eels is shameful. Now the crowd has been released and comes running forward, arms out. So few? But it’s a very small village…the boys and girls of the village, and the children of his age grown up now, and a new crop of stick-limbed, shock-haired youngsters replacing them, staring at his uniform. He recognizes Olmin…and Astos…Wanabis. Underfed, bony, been cleaned up for the occasion. At least half the girls are heavy with child. The boys beards have all been removed and the lower halves of their faces painted dark to match the sunburned bits. Beards are for savages. Bony, brown faces…more puzzled than resentful, more resentful than happy. What do they care? They forgot him years ago. Six years—is that all? He doesn’t belong here now.

  He never did belong.

  He wants to turn and run back to the torch; he wants that so badly his knees shake. This is worse than hunting Abbots through the bowels of a Q ship.

  Faces…Faces missing. There’s only one face he really wants to see, and he won’t ever see that one again. He knows that, and yet he hasn’t been able to remember the village without remembering Nivel. Nivel isn’t here. Nivel would be smiling too, but Nivel’s smile would be real and shine in his eyes. It must be ten years ago now…One day just like any other day, and then somebody, somewhere, alarmed another pepod, and this one came flailing into a work gang with poison spines lashing and put eight boys and three girls into death agonies. A little place like this can’t afford screamers to keep the pepods away.

  There were no cameras here that day.

  Now the villagers are milling around, thinning out, backing away; puzzled, cowed, being prompted by hidden voices, moving so the cameras can see him, the hero being welcomed by his childhood friends. The freak is back.

  Olmin is visibly shaking. Looks like he has to speak first. Place hasn’t got a mayor, hasn’t got a priest. Seems Olmin has been designated as Best Friend. That’s a bitter joke! Olmin the taunter? Olmin the tormentor? Olmin who sat on his chest and beat fists on his face. Olmin who peed on him while the others held him down. Very reasonable—they just wanted to see if pee would turn his hair the right color. It never did. Best Friend? Well, why not? The rest were no better. Did you ever scare me as much as you are scared right now, big-kid Olmin?

  Missing faces…Glora isn’t there. They’d assured him that there would be no Glora. The Patrol doesn’t want the world to hear Admiral Vaun’s crazy mother screaming about meeting God and virgin birth and how she’s always known her son would save the world. Glora’s been taken away for treatment.

  Olmin makes a croaking noise and lays an awkward, shaking hand on Vaun’s shoulder, frightened of dirtying the epaulet.

  “Vaun!” He is licking his lips and listening to his prompter with his eyes so wide that the whites show all around the mud-brown irises. “It’s good…to see you…again. Vaun.” Pause. His scalp shines through his sandy hair.

  Vaun waits for his cue, tries to hold a smile, watches the goiter lump jiggling in Olmin’s throat. Feels sudden anger—why isn’t the local booster adjusted for iodine deficiency?

  Still Olmin’s turn. “And good…to be back…too, Vaun…I expect?”

  “‘It’s always good to come home, Olmin,’” prompts the voice in Vaun’s ear.

  He tries to say the words, and they stick in his throat like shit.

  Good to come home? No, it’s horrible to come home. I hate this place! I hate the lot of you. You made my life a hell, all of you. If I saved the world, then it wasn’t for you. God knows, it wasn’t for any of you.

  “It’s always good to come home, Olmin.”

  WAS OLMIN STILL alive, down there in the dark, living out his belly-crawling existence in the mud of the delta? It wasn’t likely, because the peasants’ booster was crude, all-purpose stuff, not tailor-made like a spacer’s. But Vaun could almost hope he was, because a life like that was its own punishment. Long life to Olmin!

  Now the torch was grazing the edges of space, where Angel could not hold back the flood of stars, and the night wore its finery. By habit, Vaun’s eyes sought out the constellation of the Swimmer, and the eye of the Swimmer—Alpha and Gamma, two reddish stars, the suns of Avalon. The suns that shone on Monad, where it all began…

  Angel was almost at the zenith. Dawn must be near.

  He laid back his seat in the torch; he reclined at ease in the little bubble and thought about ciphers and electronics and passwords and missiles. In theory the problem was simple—Commodore Tham was entitled to barricade himself inside Forhil to his heart’s content. If he wished, he could turn it into a modern version of one of tho
se preindustrial castles whose ruins dotted the high borderlands. Vaun had flown over them a million times. Probably Commodore Tham would be technically breaking Commonwealth law if he actually fired any of his beams and missiles and brought down a torch and killed someone, but Commonwealth law wasn’t going to do much about an officer in the Space Patrol.

  The Patrol itself, though…that was another matter. To shoot down an admiral must certainly be a breach of some regulation or other. It would show a lack of proper respect, at the very least. Furthermore, Commodore Tham did not own Forhil, although he was free to treat the place in every way as if he did. When he died, it would revert to the Patrol and be deeded to some other senior officer, and he in turn would hold it for a century or so. An admiral outranked a commodore handsomely, and Vaun could order Tham to admit him to Patrol territory. He might be reprimanded later for violating a subordinate officer’s privacy and privilege, but that was a trivial matter.

  Unfortunately Tham was not accepting messages, so he could not receive the order. He had apparently put his defenses on automatic, to shoot on sight, regardless of rank.

  High Admiral Roker himself, now, or any of the senior brass…they would know codes that could override anything Tham might use. That was the practical problem—Vaun was the famous hero, the holder of renowned Valhal, the finest estate on the planet, and so far as the world was concerned he had all the status of his exalted rank, but in fact Admiral Vaun was never provided with high-class passwords and ciphers. Not likely!

  The more he thought about it, the less Vaun could accept the coincidence of timing between Tham’s withdrawal and the arrival of the approaching Q ship. There was dirty work afoot; waters were being muddied. If Roker was not behind it, then the Brotherhood was—at least two brethren had never been apprehended, and if they were still alive, out there somewhere, then they would certainly be still conspiring somehow. They would never give up. In either case, burning Vaun down out of the sky could be part of the plan, or at least an acceptable variation on it. Even Phalo’s call yesterday might have been contrived, although Phalo himself was as trustworthy as Tham.